Sondhi in 2006 founded the People’s Alliance for Democracy, which adopted yellow, the color of the monarchy, as its symbol, and soon the Yellow Shirts embarked on a series of demonstrations demanding that Thaksin step down. This is what led, after a few months of turmoil, to the 2006 coup, when Thaksin was in New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Two years later, he was convicted of abuse of power in a transaction involving a land deal in Bangkok. He was sentenced to two years in prison, which caused him to leave Thailand in 2008.